


Courage is Crucial

by grittycupcakes



Series: Noah Czerny and Decaying: The (After)Life of a Teenage Murder Victim [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Also Adele Czerny, And there are lots of the exact same car, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean the owner's dead, I'm Sad and Everything is Horrible, Noah Feels, Not Beta Read, Pre-The Raven King, but it's worth mentioning, car theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7665277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grittycupcakes/pseuds/grittycupcakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Czerny siblings and courage. It's a complicated relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Courage is Crucial

 

Noah Czerny, a murder victim who can't remember enough of his death to tell the tale, is a lot of things. He's a boy; he's a ghost. He's a coward; he's a champ. Noah's a skeleton; Noah's flesh and bone. He's nervous and a little too shy; he's the kind of boy who'd kiss someone and admit that if he was alive, he'd want to date her. Noah is a decaying corpse underneath the summer sun, bloated and laying in his own waste.

He’s a lot of things, really. It’s complicated. 

_Is this how Gansey feels?_  

He’s different from Gansey, though. Because while Gansey is too many things to count, a layered sort of creature that changes depending on the angle you’re looking at him, Gansey isn’t dead. He’s died before-that’s another thing they have in common-but he came back to life. 

Gansey conquered death. Noah’s forever ruled by it.

The thing is, Noah doesn’t _want_ to decay. He wants to stay, and he wants to see Blue and Gansey get married someday because he knows it will happen, he knows it. He wants to see Ronan heal, if only just a little bit; he wants to pretend to drink alcohol at a party with him, and chew spoons while Adam eats dinner in his shithole apartment. 

What Noah wants is to _live_. How do the dead come back to life? 

Noah knows the answer to that question. He just doesn’t like to think about it.

 

\---

 

Noah is good at finding things. He’s not sure if he was when he was alive-all of that’s fading, now, fading right along with the rest of him-but he’s good at it now. Adam can’t find his history textbook? You left it at Monmouth, Adam, here, take it. It’s 1 am and Gansey can’t find his glasses? Noah’ll whisper in his ear that they’re in the top drawer of his desk, next to his epi-pen, just to see him jump.

Ronan’s decided to go gallivanting off into the night, possibly drunk off his ass? Check the church.

Noah doesn’t like to go looking for Ronan. It’s not that he doesn’t care about Ronan. Ronan’s his best friend. It’s just that Ronan… Well.

Whenever he sees Ronan sleeping, he’s afraid that when he wakes up, he’s going to be covered in his own blood again. Or maybe he’ll bring another one of those night terrors with him. Noah doesn’t know. So he doesn’t go looking for Ronan anymore. Before the others found out about Ronan and his dreams, he knows the reason why Gansey thought Noah wasn’t going to look for him anymore.

Noah had found Ronan after his “suicide attempt,” laying in his own blood. And since Noah’s a coward, he’s excused from Ronan-wrangling duty. He wonders, now that the whole Greywaren thing is out in the open among them, if it’s occurred to Gansey that Noah had already known about it. If it has, Gansey hasn’t said anything about it.

 Noah appreciates that. He doesn’t want to tell Gansey that it wasn’t Noah’s secret to tell.

The weird part about all of it-how quick he can find Ronan, how scared seeing Ronan sleep makes him-is that a lot of the time, he already knows where Ronan is. He just lets Gansey find him for himself. It’s cruel, he knows, but some part of him has his hand clapped over his mouth so he can’t tell, because in all honesty, he _likes_ seeing Ronan dream. Ronan looks the calmest, the most human, when he’s dreaming; it’s different from when his face scrunches up with a nightmare, or when he’s bringing something out from the forest in his mind, and every inch of him is tense. His brow goes smooth, and the sharp line of his mouth is a little fuzzy around the edges. It goes from a butcher knife to one of those plastic knives that exist at backyard barbeques and family reunions no one actually wants to go to. Not dull-if you fell on it wrong, that mouth could definitely still slice you up-but safer.

Ronan is at his most beautiful when he’s dreaming.

So sometimes, only _sometimes,_ when he knows Ronan’s not in danger-from himself or otherwise-he’ll sit near Ronan, wherever he’s sleeping, whether in a pew at the church or under the bridge near Adam’s house or on the hood of the BMW, and he’ll watch him. He’ll draw patterns on the back of one of his hands, and watch his lips turn up a little at the corners. And Noah will smile, and huff a sigh, because someone like this, who’s magic even when he’s not doing magic, shouldn’t be real.

That is what Noah’s doing, right now.

Ronan had trudged down to the church an hour ago after a nightmare that had left him paler than usual and tight around the eyes. He might’ve known that Noah was following him, but he didn’t say anything; he just walked right out of Monmouth Manufacturing without a glance at Gansey, who had seen him going but chose to say nothing about it. (It had been a good idea. Ronan had been more volatile than usual, and one worried look from Gansey, in Noah’s opinion, probably would’ve set Ronan off.)

Chainsaw had joined Ronan outside, landing quietly on his shoulder, the fluttering of her feathers the only sound in the Henrietta night. Noah had followed, soundless behind them.

Currently, Chainsaw is on Noah’s shoulder and permitting herself to be petted. She’s such a good bird, really, just another one of the reasons Ronan is good: someone who made a bird as loyal as Chainsaw and a brother as pure and kind as Matthew Lynch is can’t be bad. Noah likes to remind himself of this when Ronan’s being foul and hot blooded and frankly, a little frightening.

(Barrington Whelk had been like that, before his father got busted and put in jail. After that, Whelk had been less foul, but a whole hell of a lot more frightening. But that doesn’t really matter.)

Ronan, as stated, is sleeping, lying on his back in the pew. His hands are crossed over his chest, one of his long legs draped haphazardly off the seat. For once, Ronan isn’t wearing jeans, he’s in baggy grey sweatpants with holes in the crotch. He is, however, in a muscle tee, which is Ronan-typical, and he still has those leather bands on. He has goosebumps on his bare arms. If he could, Noah would take off his Aglionby sweater and cover him with it like a very small, rumpled blanket. But he can’t. It’s fine, though; the sweater would barely cover Ronan, after all.

His chest rises and falls in a slow, even rhythm. If Noah focuses, he can feel Ronan’s heartbeat.

(If Noah focuses, he can feel the dip in the bed as Gansey crawls into it to try to get some sleep.)

Ronan opens his eyes suddenly, and his eyes meet Noah’s. _Be a champ,_ Noah thinks. He doesn’t want to fade away, not right now, but he can feel anxiety bubbling where his stomach should be. _Be a champ,_ he thinks ferociously. _It’s not like he can actually hurt you._ It’s not like Ronan would try, anyway.

They stare at eachother, Ronan’s eyes very blue in the dark of the church. Ronan doesn’t move, even after he’s probably able to. (Noah knows about how after he wakes up, he can’t move for a minute. He’s seen it, quite a few times.) Finally, when Chainsaw caws and flutters down to sit on Ronan’s chest, Noah asks, “Was it a good dream?”

Ronan smiles, but he’s looking at Chainsaw now. Noah thinks he’s not too good at maintaining eye contact when it’s eye contact without venom. He lifts a hand and strokes the soft, short feathers at Chainsaw’s neck. She lets him. “Yeah, man. It was.”

“You didn’t bring anything out.” Noah says, eyes on Ronan’s fingers.

Ronan’s gaze snaps to him, and Noah can’t do anything but meet it. He grins, and it’s heartbreaking. Ronan holds up his left hand, the one that’s still in a fist at his side. “Didn’t I?” He opens his palm, and there’s a set of keys. Ronan’s eyes glint with something like the look he’d get when he raced the other dreamer on the streets. _Shit,_ Noah thinks.

Noah smiles, even though his stomach is in a knot. Tonight, he’s a _champ_ , damn it.

 

\---

 

When they pull up in the BMW to the rows and rows of white Mitsubishis, well, Noah isn’t at all surprised. “Ronan,” he says, and he’s trying at that thing Gansey does; he’s got his shoulders back and his head held high and is looking sideways at Ronan’s handsome face. (The way his hands are gripping the edges of his seats is irrelevant.)

“Noah,” Ronan replies, only a little heat behind it.

“ _Kerah,_ ” Chainsaw says, pressing her beak against Ronan’s neck. Noah thinks she just wants to be included. Once he’s parked, Ronan pets the feathers of her neck, gently. She nips at his fingers. Noah sighs, something he’s been doing a lot lately. Chainsaw looks at him with her right eye.

With that, they get out of the car.

“Toss me the keys,” Noah says, holding out a hand. Ronan gives him a look as he locks up the BMW that says _No fucking way, man._

What Ronan says out loud is “Piss up a rope.”

“How do you know what Kavinsky’s keys were like?” Noah asks, even though he already knows. Ronan ignores him and walks to one of the cars; the thing that separates this one from the rest is that the graphic on the side is of a gun instead of a knife. He unlocks it, gets in, and starts it; in the time all that took Noah has gotten in on the passenger side, buckled himself into the seat, and uneasily settled against the vinyl of the seat. Ronan turns on the radio: thumping bass and some singer that’s probably popular in Europe singing something Slavic. On the dash, there’s the trace remnants of powder.

“Was he a coke head?” Noah asks as Ronan pulls out. He has to yell over the music to be heard.

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,” says Ronan. Chainsaw caws her agreement. For some reason, neither of them have to be all that much louder to be heard; they’re like twin sharp knives, capable of conscious thought.

“That’s not an answer,” says Noah, stalling. Chainsaw gives him a look that says _I know what you’re doing, Ghost Boy._

Ronan revs the engine: it’s low and it’s savage, and he quite clearly is a little intoxicated by it. His eyes are practically glowing, a poisonous, pretty blue. If it wasn’t for all the times he’s seen Ronan sleep, Noah would think that this Ronan is the most beautiful of all.

Really, this one is just the most intoxicating. It’s understandable to get the two mixed up, though.

Chainsaw burrows into Ronan’s neck, and like that they speed off into the night.

 

\---

 

When they get back to Monmouth in the BMW, it’s almost dawn, and Noah’s fading with every step he takes. It’s alright. It had been a good night. Chainsaw seems to sense it; she flies off his shoulder and into the night, to do whatever dream birds do when they’re tired of ghost boys and insolent dreamers.

It’s possible she just doesn’t want to fall to the ground when Noah’s gone. Or that she’s hungry. (What’s it like to be hungry, again?)

Gansey is asleep at his desk, when they get into the apartment. He must’ve been unable to sleep, and tried to do his homework. Adam, Noah thinks, would be proud of him. Noah’s just sad that Gansey won’t take sleeping pills or something, just so he’d get some _sleep._ Ronan presses a finger to his lips, that universal signal to be quiet. _Don’t wake Gansey,_ it says.

The look Noah gives him says _don’t be stupid._

Instead of heading straight to his room, Ronan strides over to the desk. Gansey, illuminated by the lamp and the near-dawn sunlight, is slumped over and drooling all over his math work. His glasses are crooked on his face. His bare torso looks pale where the yellow light of the lamp doesn’t reach it, with only the grey light from the windows touching his skin. Right now, his hair looks wheat-brown and as soft as it usually does. (That is to say, it looks very soft. If Noah were more solid, or alive, he’d touch it.)

Noah follows him over, and stands beside Ronan. He’s barely there. Slowly, as if afraid that the slightest sound will wake his sleeping king, Ronan reaches out and takes off Gansey’s glasses. He folds them up and sets them by his right hand. It’s still holding a mechanical pencil. He pushes the hair back from Gansey’s sleeping face.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he says after a minute, still looking at Gansey. It hits Noah then that Ronan would do absolutely anything for Gansey.

“I’m dead,” Noah says, from somewhere that isn’t beside Ronan. “Not stupid.”

 

\---

 

Adele Czerny is many things; fragile, soft and spoiled, a girl who’s never had to worry about where her next meal is coming from. She’s untouchable and unknowable - she’s approachable and transparent. She’s beautiful, in abstract; her beauty comes from all that old money supporting her. She likes dresses and pink lipstick and curling her blonde hair.

These are all things that could be seen from very far away, and are apparent to anyone who crosses her path.

Adele Czerny has a secret collection of band tee shirts, black eyeliner, and ripped up skinny jeans. Her favorite band is the same as her dead brother’s, and the main reason for that is nostalgia than any other reason. She has Fall Out Boy and Green Day posters on her walls, a Blink-182 poster on the inside of her closet door. When possible, Adele prefers to write in red ink, because it makes her feel closer to said dead brother.

These are things her extended family and casual friends know.

Adele goes to things like Warped Tour in big sunglasses and Noah’s leather jacket, even though it makes her sweat bullets. Adele has brightly colored extensions she wears when she’s no where anyone who knows her casually will be; places her elitist uncles wouldn’t be caught dead in. (Sometimes Adele forgets that she’s also elitist, and she revels in going to those places and taking Instagram photos of her time there during those forgetful moments of hers.) Adele paints her nails black, and when she’s got a family dinner or a photo shoot or something else that reminds her that she’s a rich white girl from the suburbs, she gives herself a manicure and comes out on the other side with French nails. She buys her favorite dresses in thrift stores, and then tailors them to her body herself with her second-hand sewing machine.

These things, only her immediate family and most trusted friends know.

What no one but Adele knows is that she believes in the supernatural, and has been researching everything to do with ghosts and psychics ever since that girl came up to her and her family at Noah’s funeral. The journal she keeps on these things looks like what she does on the inside; utilitarian, black leather cover, her name on the inside, and then pretty, swirling letters in her favorite, chaotic red.

It’s almost full, even though she’s only had it since the spring and the fact that the journal has quite a lot of pages. Adele thinks she’s dedicated. (It is possible that she’s obsessed.)

Now, after, what, six months of research, Adele is completely certain that her dead brother remains on this earth as a ghost, and that he’s been watching her. It would be a good explanation for the goosebumps she gets every time she goes to put flowers on Noah’s grave, in any case.

If she were to tell her family, or her friends, they’d say she needs to get a hobby. That she needs to go for a hike out in the woods, or go on a nature retreat where she doesn’t talk for a week. So Adele doesn’t tell anyone, and she keeps her journal in the lockbox she keeps Noah’s cologne in. (It’s possibly the worst cologne she’s ever smelled, and why he wore it still escapes her. Still, it brings a smile to her face when she smells it on that old leather jacket.)

When Adele schedules a reading at 300 Fox Way-she heard about it from a friend of a friend of a friend who works at one of the little sandwich shops in Henrietta, the one that boasts its tuna fish-her mother finds out immediately, as Adele had known she would. Adele’s mother is like that.

“You can’t be _serious_ ,” she says, one thin blonde eyebrow arched.

Adele smiles at her, and tosses her curled hair over her shoulder. “I am.”

“You know that psychics aren’t a _thing,_ right, sweetie?” The way she says it is so kind, so concerned, that Adele feels a swell of love for her mother. Sometimes she forgets about just how much she loves her. “They're just con artists.”

“I know,” Adele says, and it’s a good lie; it sounds like she totally agrees with her mother on this. It couldn’t be further from the truth. “I’m going for the experience, anyway. With Lauren and Tina. You remember Tina?” Even though Adele does not know a Tina, her Mom nods as if she can remember the name _Tina_ from some conversation months or weeks earlier. It’s possible she thinks that Adele does in fact have a friend named Tina.

“Ah, okay. In that case.” She leans across the counter, her wine colored lips spread in a little smile. “You girls have fun. Learn the future, get your palms read, get high off incense.”

Adele laughs with her mother at that, even though she’s pretty sure you can’t get high off incense.

 

\---

 

The psychic’s daughter opens the door at 300 Fox Way and stares at her like she’s seeing a ghost. Adele isn’t as surprised as she wishes she was. “Hello,” she says pleasantly, looking down at her. “I’m here for a reading? Adele Czerny, at 2 o’clock?” When the girl doesn’t respond, Adele adds, “With Persephone and Calla? And the girl I talked to on the phone?”

This catches the girl’s attention. “Orla’s doing a reading with Persephone and Calla?” Her voice is curious, surprised, but not disbelieving.

“She said something about things working better in threes.” She says. The girl nods like that makes sense, and Adele watches the way her fledgling ponytail bounces. The girl is rather short, so Adele, who’s only about average in height, can see all the various clips she’s unevenly clipped into her hair. She’s wearing a shirt with feathers sewn into the collar and ripped up leggings.

For some reason, Adele feels under-dressed.

The girl looks over her shoulder into the bowels on her house, and then back at Adele. Her eyes are guarded, but not unkind. “Calla and Orla should only be a minute. Come on inside.” So Adele follows the psychic’s daughter into 300 Fox Way and into a room with a signed picture of Steve Martin. She gets sat down in a slightly lumpy chair before the girl turns to her, eyes a little wide. “Sorry, I almost forgot. I’m Blue Sargent.”

“We’ve met,” Adele says with a nod, because Blue Sargent, she somehow knows, isn’t going to say it herself.

“Yes.” Blue says after a moment. “Look, about the funeral-”

“Don’t.” Adele says, cutting her off. Blue looks at her, as if stunned that Adele has the courage to do such a thing to someone as fierce as Blue. “Don’t apologize. Please.” Both women are quiet for a moment, studying each other. She finds herself quite liking the psychic’s daughter, even though she almost desperately doesn’t want to.

Blue’s eyes are only a little less guarded, when she speaks again. “I’m going to go get Persephone and the others. Be right back.” Adele nods, and like a flash, Blue is gone. Adele is alone in this room that serves more purposes than any single room should have to. _This is what it’s like, not to have all the money in the world._

Something touches Adele’s shoulder, and she knows, even as she turns to look, that nothing is there.

Nothing ever is.

Blue is, as she said, right back, and three women follow her; a girl in paisley bell bottoms and platform heels that make her miles-long legs look even longer, a woman with a cloud of cotton-candy hair even lighter than Noah’s had been, and a prowling woman with plum colored lipstick and a very nice figure.

Introductions are made; Orla is the girl in the bell bottoms, and the one she had talked to on the telephone. She’s beautiful, even with her nose. Adele immediately likes her. The woman with the cotton-candy hair, in a very tiny voice, introduces herself as Persephone, and that leaves the prowling woman as Calla.

Adele extends her hand with a smile, but Calla doesn’t shake it. Blue gives her a look that says _it’s nothing personal,_ but it definitely _feels_ personal. That might have more to do with Calla’s general intimidating nature than with Adele’s neglected hand, though.

 

\---

 

After the reading, Adele’s mother calls her. “So,” she says, cheery and a little tinny over the phone, “How’d it go?”

Adele, who’s parked her car at the fairgrounds and spent the last hour crying, doesn’t respond for a long moment. She can feel her mother getting more nervous with every passing second. “Well,” she says finally, wiping her cheeks to catch the lingering tears, “It was okay. Different from what I expected.” It was more than that, but Mrs. Czerny, a woman with 101 thing to do in the next hour, doesn’t need to know that.

“Oh, really?” She asks, giving a little laugh. “How was it on your wallet?”

In Adele’s opinion, under-priced. “Very reasonable, actually.”

“What all did they do?”

Adele smiles, but it’s bitter sweet. “A whole hell of a lot, Mom. It was actually a good experience.”

“You think so?” Mrs. Czerny’s laugh speaks volumes of how little she believes her daughter. “Maybe _I_ should make an appointment!”

Adele shakes her head, and a curl falls into her face. Brushing it away, she says, “Nah, Mom. They’d smell you coming from light years away.”

“You’re using light years in the wrong context.” Mrs. Czerny says, and whether or not she’s right, Adele has no clue.

She laughs. “Sure I am. Talk to you later?”

Mrs. Czerny’s smile can be heard over the phone. “Sure, honey. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.” Adele says this to the dial tone, because her mother’s already hung up. She tosses her phone into the passenger seat and closes her eyes. She feels more alive right now than she has since Noah disappeared.

The reading had been long, which had surprised her. They’d read her cards, Persephone had translated a dream or two, Orla had read her palms even though that, apparently, wasn’t something she normally did and _this is special, just for you, because I really like that top you’re wearing._ Calla hadn’t done anything specific during the actual reading. Blue Sargent had been there for it all, watching her - no, actually, that was wrong. Blue Sargent had been watching the wall behind her, which was just a normal wall with tacky wallpaper.

After the reading was over and Adele had paid the completely reasonable fee, she’d been halfway out the door when Calla grabbed her arm. Her long nails had pinched at her skin. “Yes?” Adele had asked, confused, and not at all faking it.

Calla’s eyes weren’t as hard as she’d come to expect them to be, in the hour and a half she’d known the woman. “You’re right,” she’d growled, because that seemed to be the only way the woman knew how to speak, in growls and roars and snarls. Then she let Adele go and turned heel to go back inside the depths of 300 Fox Way, and it was just Blue and Adele.

Adele looked at Blue, who looked heartbroken and was hiding it poorly. Instead of speaking, Adele had raised an eyebrow.

Blue’s gaze was the only answer she needed, really, now that she’s thinking about it.

After that Adele had gotten in her car and driven all the way up here, where that coke head had his final shebang, and sobbed her heart out.

Adele turns the key, and listens to the engine roar to life. “Noah,” she says, because she knows, now, she _knows._ She knows he can hear her. “I’m going to bring you back to life. Soon. I swear it.” Adele turns the radio to her favorite station, cranks the volume up as high as she possibly can, and races off onto the highway.

 

\---

 

Noah does, in fact, hear her, even though he’s rifling through Gansey’s desk and trying to avoid his emotions. He knows that his sister is serious. Since he’s avoiding his emotions, he chooses not to think about how that makes him feel.

From the couch, Roger Malory and the Dog are watching him. Malory is petting the animal. They look ridiculous. Malory’s hair looks like clouds, if clouds had a big bald spot and a comb-over. “Young man,” Malory says. It’s the first time he’s ever spoken to him. Noah does not respond, but he looks at him. Waits for him to continue.

Malory does not continue. He looks at Noah, and Noah looks back. Does Malory know that Noah is dead? They’re silent, the both of them. The Dog is snoring. The look Malory is giving him says more than words ever could.  
Noah’s courage fails him, not for the first time. He fades away while Malory watches.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think, in the future of this series, I might go off-canon when it comes to The Raven King.  
> Sorry, Henry Cheng. Noah's my baby.
> 
> Contact me on tumblr @k-e-i-l-y if you want to talk about Noah Czerny and everything he deserves. (Glitter and endless puppies.)


End file.
